Worse
by dreadborn
Summary: Why should Myranda have all the fun?


The first time he came to her, and all times after, he left her bleeding, feeling shredded, with spots on her body that looked dark and pink and dim in the firelight and turned a sickly yellow the morning after. It seemed to be a game to him, to see how many winces of pain he could extract from her forced, haughty calm; so it became a game to her, too, to withstand hurt through a mask of untouchable poise, without a grimace or a cry even long past his footfalls diminished in sound down the corridor.

The very last time he came, he had made her feel like furrow, he had made her feel the depths of her insides she did not know could be reached by a man. He had relished her silent tears, licking them up with a bloodshot grin, scraping the point of a tooth across her cheekbone, stopping moments before it reached her eyeball. The resignation he saw there stopped him, displeased him, provoked him, until her thighs and her ribs had more bruised meat than clean skin, until he showed her there were other places between her legs that could be torn.

And then he did not come for days, probably quenching his lust with that bitch from the kennels, the evil taunting girl who inexplicably wanted him to herself, and Sansa counted her blessings, and applied balm to her bruises, teaching herself not to flinch, and imagined stabbing the vile creature in the throat the next time he forced her to act out conjugal duties.

And now he was standing in her doorway, with that failed facsimile of a pleasant smile, pushing the pad of his thumb against each finger's knuckle. The sound made her sick, the clammy frog-like smoothness of his skin made her sick, the heat of him when he advanced on her in that cold room made her sick, but she stilled her muscles, forced herself to withstand him like a statue and not retreat as he laid a hand on her temple, so deceptively gentle and light with his fingertips. Her eyes shot to the doorway, checking for the hated wraithlike monster. It was a relief, no matter how minute, that she was rid of him for this night, that she did not have to witness his wretchedness, nor have him as a witness to hers.

"I have been thinking," the vile creature said in a subdued voice, "I haven't been the most reciprocal lover."

It was a trap of some sort, she knew, she was not stupid, and yet he seemed to expect of her to play along, to pretend to give his words due consideration.

"It's selfish of me," he pressed on in the same soft tones when she remained quiet. "I know, but I've been so preoccupied with securing an heir for my house, you must understand."

A small part of her, the last vestige of a high-born spoiled little girl, wondered if there were any truth to his words, but the young woman who had been laid prostrate and made to bleed over her father's furs and sheets, sneered at the girl.

"Allow me," he said, a mockery of a young lord, stretching his hands to her laces, untying them carefully so that they did not strain against her ribs. He proceeded slowly, layer by layer, so patient and meticulous she began doubting her senses. Could those really be the same fingertips that closed around her throat like a claw, unyielding as a vise, that lodged themselves above her collarbone, pushing downward into sensitive tissue as his weight sank her hips deep into the mattress, that examined the bloodied remnants of her maidenhood with a steady physician's touch?

When the last of her clothing fell away, and she stood before him naked with the torchlight caught in the sheen of her pallor, he lifted his hands away.

She had pictured him circling her in this very way before their wedding night, as prey is circled by a pack, but he had never given her such attention before. Her breath caught when he touched her again, tracing the edges of her bruises, where her flesh hurt the least but still felt tender. His lips, which the repulsive bastard would lick purposefully before slobbering over her wounds, descended on her back, suddenly dry, chapped just enough to break up the traction and hit the slightest nerves. She did not know whether to push him off or plead for mercy. His mouth parted open, and the faintest fog of breath escaped, warming her shoulder blade.

Sounds came from behind her, clinks of buckles and the hiss of cloth and the horrible weight of leather hitting the floor, and it all took a very long time to subside. When he emerged again from the silence, from her back to her side, he was a pale, hairless boy smelling of acrid sweat, standing straight instead of looming as he was wont to, drinking in her fear with an almost ingenuous expression. Her resolve was beginning to falter – she had trained herself to be impervious to his force, but she could never quite capture the thread of his guile.

She turned her head uneasily, searching his face. It unnerved her to find that, stripped of his smirk, the bastard was not so revolting as he seemed in her mind. He had bilious eyes, but beneath them, even if he was not handsome like Joffrey, the sharp lines of his features appeared troublingly agreeable when they did not twist into frothing, rabid grimaces over her bent body. The memory of their last encounter solidified in her mind as she watched him, and she averted her gaze, but he completed his circle, halting directly in front of her.

She had never seen a fully naked man before. There had been young men at King's Landing, glorying in women's surreptitious stares as they ran and rode and fought bare-chested, and she had stolen her share of glances with a giddy excitement in the pit of her stomach, wanting only their favors, never imagining she would find herself face to face with their exposed skin, much less how she would comport herself in such a situation. This filthy swine of a man, he was the same as they were but for the fairness of his complexion, untouched by the southern sun. His chest sloped as theirs did, his forearms flared as theirs did, and the curve of his torso produced the same small acceleration in her heart that she felt when she looked at boys practicing swordplay, incongruous and unladylike, but familiar.

When he reached out again, it was to assault her cheek with a featherlight caress of his thumb. She closed her eyes, shivering. He was an animal, and yet he was kissing her tenderly, down the line of her jaw, behind her ear, on the underside of her trembling chin. Could she have been mistaken? Were those painful, thankless nights merely ordinary experiences of newlywed women? Was she wrong to feel terrorized when so many wives before her suffered through them with no ill feelings towards their husbands. She thought of Cersei - "a bit of a rape," she had said. Tyrion had been kind, but Tyrion did not need heirs. The warm mouth trailed upwards now, and her heart sped frantically in fright and anticipation. Weakly, she thought of her mother, or her brothers betrayed and slain. All the disgust that plagued her betrothal to Joffrey returned to her as he pressed his lips into hers; but then, he pulled away, and she found that it was a fraught relief she felt.

There was a savage beauty to him, she had to admit, in spite of her hatred. It did something to her, the serene form of his scarcely opened mouth, twisted her and clenched her and wrung her from the inside, bated her breath, chased the blood from her brain into her guts.

"Do you forgive me?" he asked, and it seemed to her that the whine was gone from his voice, that he spoke low and soft but clear. It's a game! - she told herself. Had Baelish not taught her better? His fingers brushed her cheek again, and her skin prickled as if stung by frost. Without waiting for an answer, he kissed her mouth again, and this time she felt his tongue snake past her own, leading it in a dark, slithery dance.

She pulled back, but not nearly soon enough. He knew, and he bared his teeth in a grin, and was upon her again, edging her toward the bed, and his fingers pried themselves between her thighs, and she discovered that she was not cold and tense, but open and ready. A voiceless moan escaped her throat as he pressed her into the pelts lining the mattress, and she stilled herself at once, mortified to find herself at the brink of sullying the honor of the Starks with a bastard freak's lust.

He regarded the change in her intently. She feared, as she sought his eyes, that this was enough for his volatile anger to strike, to reawaken the beast that forced itself between her legs on all the other nights since their wedding with furious, selfish impertinence, leaving blood and sweat and filth in his wake. But he merely looked down, almost bashfully, and withdrew from her mouth, and sank over the expanse of her body until his lips grazed her breast, and she shuddered once more. Warm and rough, his tongue lapped at her, making her squirm, making her ache where a man like him should never make her ache, and when his hand slid downward, her thighs parted around it as if they did not need prompting. He touched something there, something hidden and treacherous. She could hear a slick sound where his fingers disappeared inside of her.

"Please," she said finally, not daring to push his hand away, not particularly wanting to push his hand away either, wanting to know what lay on the other side of that rising feeling in her womb. He fixed her with a strange stare before moving downward again. His hand had gone away, but then she felt in its place a hot exhalation. The thought itself disgusted her – why would anyone wish to kiss a woman's privates? But he did, and her legs shook, and she found this was not something from which she could recollect herself. It was pure, raw feeling, as frightening and shameful as anything he had ever done to her, even more disgraceful because she did not enjoy those other things. "Please," she whispered again.

He stopped, and rose, and blinked, feigning confusion. "Please? Of course, my dearest wife." With his hand – and what filthy hand it was, with the edges of his nails encrusted black with dirt – he guided that thing toward her, and his knees, cadaver-pale, took their place between hers.

"That is not what I meant," she said, her voice breaking. He held her gaze as he entered her, slowly, as warm as freshly spilled blood. Did her hips really just fold beneath him of their own will, or was that just the aftershock of his assault? He began to pull out, and as he did, she felt in herself a wave of pleasure, unwelcome and wholly loathsome, and a voracious need to be filled again. He thrust again, deeper this time, and her throat closed around a whimper, and her fingers dragged themselves into fists.

"Should I stop?" he asked. A smiled curled his lips, but his eyes remained cruel. She was beginning to realize what this was, how ingeniously he had played her. Once, she had thought herself debased by the violence exerted upon her body. This was far worse.

"Should I stop?" he repeated, still smiling, but with an edge to his voice. She could envision his fury, she knew exactly how his body would unfurl over her, rigid as stone, bending her, crushing her, hurting her. Her weakness humiliated her to the root of her soul, but she shook her head, weakly returning his stare. "You _don't_ want me to stop?"

"No," she whispered. There was pressure on her hipbones; he held her down as he pulled himself out of her. She felt a momentary surge of panic, thinking his offer of clemency, such as it was, had been withdrawn, but then she felt the firm warmth at her slit again, and she cried out in relief when he buried himself in her anew, this time to the hilt.

"I have never heard a lady moan like a bitch in heat," he said to her. His fingers brushed her hair back, picking the strands matted with sweat off her forehead, gentle again, mindful of her delicacy, and then, just as sudden, he grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked it backward, and she moaned for him again, unsure whether it was pain or some perverse form of excitement that tore the sound from her throat. He took her chin between his fingertips, and lifted it until her eyes aligned with his. "It is not altogether unbecoming," he said. "I confess I rather like it."

She let the cries escape her freely now. It cost nothing but her pride, which she had lost all claim to when the bastard made her enjoy her violation. When he kissed her again, she responded ferociously. She would give him a blow for a blow, she decided, and bit back, and pulled his hair, and left fingermarks all over his moon-pale arms. When he slapped her, and she tasted blood where her tooth tore into the inside of her lip, she scratched him to the quick. He made her ride him, and she did, rapidly and viciously, baring her teeth like a feral spearwife until she brought him to a finish.

There was blood on his cock, she saw, but for the first time she felt no pain. He lay there awhile, gathering strength. His fingers absently played with her hair, but she forced herself to think nothing of it. She did not look at him as he dressed, nor when he forced one last kiss onto her lips, nor when he left her alone in their pool of sweat and blood and filth. But when his footsteps diminished in the corridor, she trailed her hand down her belly and recalled his cruel, savage face out of the oblivion.


End file.
